Matt Chandler.
Matt Chandler?
Matt Chandler is not your typical Christian.
Matt Chandler is hilarious.
Matt Chandler has a beautiful wife, Lauren and three gorgeous kids.
Matt Chandler is the senior pastor at the Village Church in Dallas.
Matt Chandler changed my life simply by preaching the true Word.
Matt Chandler had a seizure on Thanksgiving Day.
Matt Chandler has a brain tumor.
What just happened?
Everything was perfect. Amazing wife, kids, job, church, life.
I really was not expecting this whole Matt Chandler has a brain tumor thing to affect me like it has. The craziest part of all is that Matt is not the one who really shook me up about all this…it was His wife Lauren.
After I found out I stumbled across Lauren’s blog. As I read Lauren’s deepest emotions about all this so many emotions overwhelmed me too. Their quiet and sure trust in the Lord was remarkable. As I gazed at a nearly perfect picture of her and Matt in a field, the sun shinning behind them, and as Matt embraced Lauren from behind and steals a kiss from off her neck while a contagious smile spreads across her face an emotion hit me.
I don’t even know what to call it. Fear maybe. Matt and Lauren’s story is beautiful and here they are in a field, in love, enjoying life and each other and all that was changed in moments. What scares me even more is how calm and peaceful they are about all of this.
What if one day my husband gets taken from me? Or one of my kids? How do people go through things like this? I don’t want these typical answers. Look, I know all the right answers I’m supposed to say. God will give you a peace, the Lord gives and takes away, it’s all in His hands. I KNOW! But these people are living in it right now. Living in heartache, yet with peace and joy. Its easy to know it, but my gosh they are IN it.
I know all the right answers of God works all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8). Maybe these things that we all know don’t penetrate until it happens. Maybe Matt and Lauren knew this all along and now…now they get to feel and believe it for the first time. That when people say God is good, it has whole new meaning to them now.
This story has messed with me so much the last week, in a good but painful way. Where is my hope? Where is my joy? Where is my trust? I don’t just want to know its in my Savior, I want to feel and believe it to my core. To glorify Him, becase HE is better than anything. Better than relationships, better than health, better than my family, better than laughter, better than anything. Thank you, Matt and Lauren, for sharing this struggle and being so faithful to the Lord. I want to make much of Christ in all things not just the easy things. In college, at work, when I’m playing guitar, when I buckle my seat belt, when I text my brother back, when I read a good book, when I smile at a stranger, or even if I find out I have a brain tumor. I will never cease, because Your steadfast love is better than even life. (Psalm 63)
